The managed silence of women in politics

[IwantToRetire]

None of this needs a censor’s red pen. It takes venue policies, “values” statements and security theatre – and a legal climate ambiguous enough to chill – to make people police themselves. That’s how self-censorship becomes the house style.

You don’t need prohibitions when you have process. Venue terms. HR protocols. “Dignity at work” rules stretched past their purpose. Security assessments that become vetoes in all but name.

Layer in legal fog – see the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, with its elastic definitions of “abusive” speech – and the effect is predictable: people trim sentences, swerve topics, decline invitations, and ladle on caveats until the point collapses.

Result: careful words, careful silences, careful disengagement. The oxygen leaks out of debate and everyone learns to breathe shallowly.

... watch where the stage literally disappears – where apologies are issued for a guest’s presence, and “security” is the pretext for cancellation. It clusters around women who speak plainly on sex and gender, or whose faith informs their politics.

For years they were told to take up space. Now the instruction is different: mind your tone, moderate your beliefs, make yourself smaller. That’s not equality; it’s an equal-opportunities gag.
Hard censorship is obvious: a cancelled event, a withdrawn platform, a disciplinary.

Soft censorship is subtler and more corrosive: “we can’t support the impact of hosting you”; “let’s not distract from priorities”; “for unity, could you not raise this now?” None of those measures bans content. All shrink the space where women can contribute. ...

Continues at https://thinkscotland.org/2025/11/censorship-with-paperwork-the-managed-silence-of-women-in-politics/

Are you thinking of the Sullivan review? Or is that the piece of Sex Matters website?

unherd.com/newsroom/new-report-exposes-campaign-to-silence-gender-critical-academics/

One thing transactivists fail to understand is that their open intimidation and dislike of women have helped to generate a massive regeneration of the women's movement, the gay rights movement along with adults determined to safeguard children - all organising. Although many of these groups have to be "underground" given the dangers too many transactivists pose to others - these groups are networking, collaborating and focussed on the main issues (along with the occasional argument 😃)
The BBC revelations about their open bias revealed quiet networks of brave journalists calling out what was happening - despite the threats to their careers.

We're in a very different place to where we were 5 years ago with the silencing of women (and men) being challenged repeatedly.

Just noticed this and that some posts have been deleted.

Will the mods be dealing with our resident derailer Howseitgoin? Or will you be allowing him to continue clogging up threads with irrelevancy and derails?

@HopeMumsnet this is a very good explanation of what the derailer poster does.

No, it was around before the Sullivan Review came out.

Seconded.

@HopeMumsnet Here and on another thread I've had some short and very anodyne posts deleted. In those posts I referred obliquely to our derailer, and described some of the problems we encounter with their posting behaviour. This is intended mainly as a warning to others not to engage.

Why is that wrong?

Would it be better to engage fully and allow the thread to be derailed further?

I obviously can't answer for them, but MN generally is very averse to 'troll hunting'. They prefer it if you report the person's posts and relay your concerns/issue.

Unfortunately, some people posting in bad faith are quite aware of this, and will play games where they taunt posters to elicit responses that may be called 'troll hunting', which they can then report and have deleted.

Again, it's all power and control. Petty, puerile, and pointless.

I'm giving side eye at the mods (sorry mods, I do appreciate you really!) because the topic is censorship in this thread, as well as because of Justine's post on another recent thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5442610-the-current-state-of-mn-and-how-do-i-stop-reading?reply=148524522

"Thanks for raising this - it's something we've been discussing internally as we've noticed the same shift you’re describing and we agree it’s something we need to get a much firmer grip on. Debate is part of Mumsnet’s DNA, but unnecessary meanness isn’t, and it helps absolutely no one.
We’ve already put a plan in place to tighten things up. It’s not just about deleting the really obvious personal attacks, but tackling the low-level sniping and pile ons that drain the life out of threads and discourage people from posting in the first place. That means more proactive involvement from us earlier in a thread, not just sweeping up afterwards.
One thing that really helps is reporting. There are around 25,000 posts a day on here, so we really don’t see that much in real time. If something feels off, please do report it. We promise to read things in context and we’d much rather step in early than let a thread spiral.
Most people on here genuinely want to give support or perspective. When that gets drowned out by needless nastiness, everyone loses. So thank you to everyone who’s raised this. We hear you, we agree with you, and we’re working on it."

While this is admirable, I wonder whether there is a plan to deal with the derailer type of troll. Individual posts might stay within the rules of MN guidelines, but these posters do not post "in the spirit", and the behaviour as outlined by @ArabellaSaurus are clearly a form of harassment designed to silence women.

@HopeMumsnet also @Shedmistress's post today at 6.31am (on page 2), were she explains the Gish gallop technique which Howseitgoing makes liberal use of on this board.

"Low-status males that have the most to lose due to a hierarchical reconfiguration are responding to the threat female competitors pose," the researchers, from the University of New South Wales and the Miami University in Ohio, write. "High-status males with the least to fear were more positive."
...
When performing poorly, players increased negative statements toward women and submissive statements toward the men who were winning.

"As men often rely on aggression to maintain their dominant social status, the increase in hostility towards a woman by lower-status males may be an attempt to disregard a female's performance," the researchers write.'

Thanks Arabella. I think we all need reminding of this. It is relevant to this thread for many reasons.

Another excellent reminder.

Thank you!

That poster manages to stay just on the right side of the guidelines though. I don't think MN will do much. To spot a pattern of derailing you have to read hundreds of posts over a long time span. They don't have the resources.

If MN could issue guidance saying JUST MAKE YOUR FUCKING POINT ALREADY then that would be a start.

From HopeMumsnet's post it sounds as though the mods have read the thread. Surely even just the first 4 pages would be enough to show Hows's derailing posts aren't "in the spirit" at the very least?

I don't want his posts removed, I'd just like the mods to recognise these posters and warn them to either stop derailing, or to set up their own thread. Maybe a 3 strikes system could be used for persistent bad faith posters? I honestly don't know what the answer is, but I think MNHQ could address the problem with persistent bad faith posters if they wanted to.

I agree @CohensDiamondTeeth

I also think some of these recent posts will get deleted for being too "personalised" 🙄

That reminded me of Rule Five.

That seems to explain the anger incels direct at women as well as explain some of the motivation for why TW, who are likely to be more lower status males, shift to women’s groups to reposition themselves as higher status within that group. Also explains the vitriol and anger towards women who push back and question their special status.

In relation to self censorship, I absolutely self censor myself at work. I’m full of admiration for these women who refuse to be silenced, but what a huge price to pay. It’s due to fear at the potential retaliation by the (ironically) #bekind folk after witnessing what happened to Stock and Phoenix and all the others.

The silencing of women has been going on forever and this is the latest manifestation. Ten years ago, a colleague was threatened of dismissal because of complaints about her work researching the different impacts of drugs on males vs females.

Ten years ago, a colleague was threatened of dismissal because of complaints about her work researching the different impacts of drugs on males vs females.

This is so bizarre. Ten years ago there was public discussion about how using men as the default for trials, whether car safety belts, PPE let alone biological bodies only leads to poor outcomes - for women.

It just reinforces that in some way attitudes towards women just have not changed.

On the service there may be token acknowledgement but outside of that focus men in charge of work places or whatever, including on the internet, behave as though women are still second class citizens.

@IwantToRetire the complaints came from the trans community that the research was bio essentialism when it included TW in the male sample.

FFS. Excluding TW completely erases them from the data, which harms them because no one knows how cross-sex hormones interact with the drugs under study, so no one can know how these drugs will affect TW. Putting them in the female category harms women, because it alters what the effects of the drug on women look like. Women have fought for decades now to get studies done on us at all, it's misogyny to demand that the data from studies on us be tainted by having male data mixed in.

If there's one time where "bioessentialism" is required, it's in medicine.

Yes but ... those doing research presumably know that there are biological differences between bodies of the 2 sexes.

The fact that those with an understanding of biology were prepared to censor someone for dealing with biological facts shows that even when dealing with biological facts men will acknowledge other men's interests as having more rights than women, let alone doing research to help women.

Totally nutty!

I say it a lot, but will say it again, TRAs would never have got the foothold they have is the long existing MRAs weren't already in control of positions of power and influece.

Clearly if women's rights activists were the dominant group the scenario you referred to would never have happened.

The MRAs are thrilled to have TRAs attacking women and undermining them, when they have had to so a fake interest in equality.

Now they dont have to.